Blossoms, Leaves, and Other Green Things – Fun on the Farmstead Friday

Since Facebook has decided that blog pages no longer exist and is now showing my posts to almost no one, I thought I would start a new post here on the blog on Fridays showing you a little snapshot of our homesteading life , plus some other fun goodies. In the comments you can share what you’ve been doing this week around your rural or urban or city homestead!

Above you can see my peas in the garden! They are several inches tall already and looking great. My onions are looking good as well and this week I planted everything else since the danger of hard frost is finally past. I’m so excited about my garden and canning season!

We started back on our renovations this week as we realized a 2nd bedroom would be a really good thing to have! The 2nd bedroom in the farmhouse is located under the landing so the underneath of the staircase is in there. It also houses the washer and dryer, it’s a busy room! The underneath of the staircase was totally enclosed with walls, we tore it open to open up the room and found a few of the stairs were darker and more oily than the rest and also had really old nails in them. It must have been used as a closet a long time ago. I love that the backs of the stairs are wore smooth and have the oils from someone’s hands on them still. That’s day to day history right there. 🙂

We wondered what this tree was all winter when it had no leaves. It’s very large and rather bushy. This spring the leaves unfolded to be a beautiful maroon color and it just blossomed with some lovely dark purple flowers. Our guess is that it is a very old crab apple tree but we will find out soon! My hubby is already looking forward to crab apple jelly!

I picked up some very nice blueberry plants a few weeks ago and they are doing so well! I think they are 2nd or 3rd year plants based on how big they are and this week they produced some pretty little flowers so I’m crossing my fingers for blueberries! I can already taste the cobbler….

Friday has been “deals day” for quite some time here but if you haven’t been getting our posts on Facebook you might have missed it! Today I’ve rounded up some great free ebooks (Clean Eating, Survival Pantry, Healthy Snacks for Kids, and more!), a special deal on Women’s Day Magazine, a few great prices on some household goodies, and a couple other freebies. Click here to see all the deals today.

Merissa

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Comments

Ooh, I love your crap apple tree! Our neighbors have one hanging over our fence (and won’t let me cut it back so the toddlers can’t grab the apples when they’re the perfect choking size), but it has these small white blossoms. We had a tree in our front yard that we couldn’t for the life of us figure out what it was, either. I thought it was a maple since it had these glorious red leaves over the summer and fall, but then its roots started shooting up saplings. Then when it blossomed this spring, we finally realized it’s an ornamental cherry (no fruit (sad!)).

I finally got a third of my garden planted. We’re doing raised beds since our soil is so poor, but we didn’t realize just how much soil we’d need, nor did we realize how expensive it is! We have a small section of hill that we could level and use as garden dirt (with plenty of compost worked into it), but that hill holds up our other neighbor’s yard, and we’d have to reinforce it somehow, and we haven’t figured it out yet. Still, one-third of my plants are in the ground, so life is good. 🙂

Sounds like you are well on your way with your garden! Yes, the expenses can be scary up front but at least most of it is a one time expense and now it will just to be maintaining it. I know my mom had similar worries when she put in raised beds.

The tree we think is crab apple actually has some white flowers and some purple ones like I took a picture of above. It’s an odd creature!

I have sugar snap peas coming up, as well as spinach. I have my tomatoes in the ground, one of which is an heirloom variety, “Old German”, which I am excited to taste! As well as flowers growing…I purchased my plants this year at an Amish greenhouse & all I can say is quality, quality at the right prices! I purchased a mini-greenhouse this year so next year I may not have to buy any plants, but grow my own. I will really like learning about your farmstead.

I’d love to know how they do! I love planting heirloom seeds too. An Amish greenhouse sounds very neat, I’ve never seen one before! Our seed starts didn’t do so well this year so I ended up having to buy also. Next year the greenhouse will hopefully be done so everything will do much better 🙂

So glad that you mentioned the FB issue! I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that my posts are maybe “reaching” under 10 people. I’ve been so confused about what’s going on, and thought I was just losing readers/interest. It seems like all of the FB page posts are just hidden!

I love reading your blog! It always makes me smile. I grew up on a farm and we raised chickens and pigs. I also had horses and dogs to take care of. I was a part of the local 4H club and always wanted to raise my children the same way. Then I met my soul mate and he was more of a city guy! We do balance each other so that is good. LOL
We just celebrated 13 years of marriage and 20 years together!
In the next 6 months we will be moving and I will be getting my farm! My hubby is so on board with our move and our farm. We want to raise chickens and Guinea hens and of course the garden!
We are so excited and reading your blog helps me plan and get my lists together since I am a huge planner!
It sucks Facebook is being a pain but that is why I get your emails!

Merissa, your blog is like visiting a friend in the country! I just love it! Here in the city, my 5 yr old, Natalie, and I went to pick up our pool passes for the summer pool, which officially opens tomorrow. We were surprised to see a lone Mallard duck happily paddling in quiet of the deep end. After lunch, my daughter found her “boo-kini” and helped commandeer the garden hose to wash our 85 lb. dog in the driveway. No one ran off — the child or dog, so life is good! This afternoon, I have plants to plant (before they all die in their plastic store pots!) and a blueberry pie to make after washing the sheets, so not sure which of the 3 will have to wait for tomorrow as my husband just called and said work computers are down, so he will be home early. Yay! Nothing too exciting around here, just a normal day, but a happy one. Hope everyone enjoys their project, too! So much fun to hear what we’re all busy with!

I’m happy for everyone whose garden is growing. This was our first year..ever. We started the plants indoors at the beginning of March. I read a bunch and surfed the web and talked to other gardeners but they died. All of them died. I gave up this year. I feel defeated and don’t want to do it at all but then I have my days where I really want to.
We went to a man’s house down the road and asked if he’d share his secret. He said he plants the seeds straight into the ground. No indoor stuff!
Ugg…do I try again next year? We spent so much money preparing this year and we’ll have to again next Summer. 🙁
Do I begin indoors? If so, when? I live in Central Oklahoma. Please someone help. We want to feed our children healthy and without chemicals.

We only start the really long season things (tomatoes and peppers) indoors. Since you are further south you might not need to. If a neighbor said that he plants in the ground directly and it works for him I would try it!

I am in Texas, so a bit further south, but I believe you are also in a drought there? Yep, plant directly in the ground. It does take longer, and we had an unusually long winter here, so you have to plan accordingly, but we have a long growing season down here. Watering appropriately for each veggie is so important, also using mulch to retain the water. Sometimes, those beautiful plants at the nurseries may be designed to grow quickly to be sold, but they don’t necessarily do well in the long run once they are actually planted outside. Seeds are cheap, so you can start over as needed. We also save and plant seeds all spring and summer just using the seeds from what we eat. So that’s a really cheap way to keep the garden growing. Don’t give up–start small with only a few varieties. Each year you can enrich the soil to a new spot and thus enlarge your garden that way. We eat organic as much as possible, and it’s sooo worth it!

Angel,
Try not to be too discouraged, even those of us who have been on a farm or gardening our whole lives have things like this happen. This year I planted a section of garden only to have another family member till right over it a week later! I could’ve cried…but instead I replanted. 🙂 Hang in there, it will be worth it!
(For the record, we are in Northeast Nebraska and I start a lot of my seeds indoors, then also do a direct sow in Spring, for me that works pretty well.)

Oh yes, failure happens all the time in this lifestyle too! This is the first decent good looking garden I’ve had in years. Just a few years ago my entire garden just flooded right out and the year after grasshoppers at the whole thing 🙁

Angel ~ Keep trying!! Buy some herbs and nursery transplants now and garden small. Also, ask around like you already did, and find what works for your area. You live in a warmer climate, so direct planting could work. I live in southwest PA, and have tomato plant ‘volunteers’ growing right now that grew from seed in the ground, and they typically do better than the one’s I baby in the house, but here is is colder. Next year, start your plants later, I planted peppers and some tomatoes at the end of March to mid April. I find that they work more on their own timetable, and starting them earlier inside usually means they get longer stems, but not necessarily healthier or more prepared to transition outside. If OK is as windy as NM (I drove through there this past early spring…wind could be an issue for you, so that might be why the farmer down the road from you has success with direct sowing in the ground, the plants are immediately acclimated to the weather conditions. Start small, and enjoy, and don’t give up. Gardening is trial and error, and the most experienced gardeners often have failure too, but also always have hope. Just be adaptable to what’s around you!!

Thank you all for the encouragement. We will plant again next year. We are looking forward to it. This year we’ll go to farmers markets and buy fresh our 3 children love finding food there. I’m super excited now and will plant accordingly next Spring. Thanks again.

I have tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, and all my herbs growing. The little fig tree is making little figs, no flowering involved. We moved the location of the tomatoes this year, so that they get all the morning sun, but some shade beginning in the early afternoon. Our Texas sun is a killer! I also planted shrubs, have annual flowers beginning to bloom, and have 3 little oak trees about a foot tall each and 2 china berry trees about 3 feet tall. All just came up in the yard last year. Some day, some one will have some shade in this yard 🙂 I’m also transplanting St. Augustine to different parts of the yard. It grows well here, although it does require watering to keep it looking good. Planting okra and cantaloupe are in the plans. We are experimenting with corn.
We have two slightly raised garden areas that I like to decorate in a whimsical manner. I saw cute pics online showing borders made out of plates. So this morning I went to the thrift stores and bought 30 plates at .35 each, all in various blue and white patterns. I can’t wait to get started this afternoon!

I have been enjoying reading your blog. We are moving from the city to the country next weekend. I won’t be able to have a big garden this year because I have to build a fence around it to keep the deer out. So this year I am going to have a small herb garden in the front yard and I am going to grow tomatoes in pots on my patio. I have a whole bunch of raspberry plants to take with me that I can’t wait to plant!! Our new house was built in 1908 so I am really excited to live in my little old farmhouse. We will be renovating the kitchen and bathrooms soon. Thanks for sharing all your photos!

Another option would be to ask around your area. You might find someone who is willing to let you dig up some of the off-shoots of their raspberry plants. You could get them & plant them this year, so hopefully next year they will start to produce fruit. They don’t grow fruit for like the first year (or something like that). I’ve had raspberry plants for years. Mine started from my neighbor giving me shoots that she dug up to thin her garden. Rather than throwing them away she offered them to me. I had no idea what I was doing so I just stuck them in the ground. I gotta say, those babies are pretty indestructible. I end up pulling or mowing over shoots on a regular basis because they pop up everywhere. LoL. I have another neighbor who got plants from the same lady. He cuts his plants back every year. I typically just leave them as is at the end of the growing season. Then, the next Spring I cut out the branches that don’t bud out with leaves. I get raspberries a lot sooner than he does. Right or wrong….I don’t know….I just know that what I’ve done all these years is working well so that’s how I do things. hehe So…I think you’ll start getting berries sooner if you find some plants & get them in the ground this year. Maybe you can get them free or you could barter (for some of your produce…when you start harvesting… in exchange for some plants, or for who knows what else… a service maybe). 🙂 Heck, if I knew how to get them to you alive, I’d send you some of mine….free. Well… in exchange for all the enjoyment you have provided me with your blog! 🙂 (that’s a more-than-fair trade to me) lol

Oh great!! I’m happy to hear that. Oh…I just signed up to receive your newsletter since fb is not trustworthy anymore. lol. I want to thank you for the free copy of your ebook “The Canner’s Cookbook”. 🙂 It is the first ebook I have ever downloaded. I am still ‘old-school’ & prefer printed books so I have not downloaded any before. But I couldn’t resist this one. I am so glad I got it! I saved it on my computer (I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do) lol. So, thank you for my ebook. 🙂

I’m glad you got it! And I know what you mean, I will always love printed books more than digital. I like to print out my ebooks I get and put them in 3 ring binders 🙂 I hope you enjoy the newsletters!

I love to see what’s happening around your farm, and I’ve missed the farmhouse renovations, so glad they’re back, and happy that you are excited about your garden and canning season! My daughter’s and I made dandelion jelly last month, it was so much fun, and the jelly is a beautiful happy lemony jelly. I can’t wait to see how your crabapple jelly turns out! And congratulations to your growing family!

We are doing a straw bale garden again this year. It is our 4th year.
We just got the straw bales and have a couple left over from last year that are decent so I am going to plant the potatoes that are sporting in the basement. We have 10 new bales and 4 from last year. My hubby is conditioning the bales and is on day 2 of the 10 days needed to make them ready to plant. The weather here has been not wonderful for spring. We live just north of Buffalo, NY along the Niagara River and the ice boom finally came out so the rest of the ice on Lake Erie was going past us this whole last week. Hopefully my hubby will get the garden rototilled this weekend before it rains again. Everything is late here. My Lilacs are just starting to bloom and I still have a couple of daffodils left in the garden and a lot of tulips. Usually the Lilacs are blooming by Mothers Day but this year they are late. We are planing on being in our small city garden walk on July 12th. I am hoping that the day lilies and all the rest of my special lilies are blooming for that time. Last year they were all done by the time the garden walk came around and things didn’t look as colorful. We are highlighting our straw bale garden for the most part. I will add pictures as soon as I can. This weekend is very busy for us as we have a wedding to attend and there are a lot of people from out of town here that we need to see. I will get back to you all next week sometime.

Facebook messing with us again. Wall posts and your page post come and go and for me, I have been having this problem for weeks.

Mom and I live in a condo now and she has been working on the patio by planting some flowers and veggies. The veggies are in flower pots as no garden is allowed. Not sure how much in each pot, but I can tell you there are several!!! With the price of everything we purchase going up, everyone can grow their own food in flower pots to help save a little bit on the food bill. I am looking forward to great tasting tomato’s!’

I want to express congratulations on the growth of your family! And say that I live vicariously through you. I’m a country girl who married a city boy and always longed to return to the simple life of the farm. Life does not usually go as we planned so here I am at 65, a widow and newly transplanted Floridian making a new life for myself in Missouri. My dream is to find a few acres with an old farm to call my own! Your trees definitely look to be crabapple of one kind or another. Be sure to get a picture of the whole tree in blossom! I use mine as a background on my FB profile page. I have a crabapple pickle recipe from an old cookbook if you are interested. Let me know. I’m sure there are other recipes out there if people go into their mothers and grandmothers recipe boxes! Keep up the good work. Always look forward to your updates. DD

You’re garden is looking great! Ours is not doing so well…we’re in California…Central Valley. Going through a drought right now…so far the only thing that is thriving is a few stubborn flowers the kids planted, green onions and our baby lemon tree but of course the weeds are doing just fine 😉 ….I guess there is always next year….

I just love to read your articles about farmstead living! You and your husband are so hardworking and quite wise.
My family have been farmers for many generations in rural Indiana so I can appreciate and enjoy your stories.
I hope you are not working too hard and have some time to enjoy those little ones. There is never ending work on a farm.
God bless you and yours.
Kim

I love visiting your site! On this page, I got to see the picture of the peas coming up…but of the other pictures didn’t come through. Just empty frames with a question mark in the middle. 🙁 But still loved the article of course!

How big are your blueberry bushes?? We just bought 4 of them ourselves and they have blossoms and are about 2 feet tall. Just wondering if they are comparable to yours because I have no clue how old they are but we would love blueberries this year as well!

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Welcome to Little House Living! My name is Merissa and it’s nice to meet you! Here you can learn how to make the most with what you have. Whether that’s learning how to cook from scratch, checking out creative ways to save money, and learn how to live simply. I’m glad you’ve found your way here. Make sure to keep in touch by contacting me with questions and signing up for our newsletters.